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I respect your willingness to take the time to actually try to understand the points I was trying to make and being willing to debate them in a reasonable manner. I mean that sincerely btw and agree with you that I too wish people would dig much deeper when it comes to discussing or debating different policy positions and get past the vitriol and name calling.
Having said that, I have to, with all due respect, strongly disagree with the characterization that the policies/ideas the Republican Party endorses are "patently absurd". That's a curious statement especially considering how "out there" the policies are in AOC's version of a Green New Deal. I suppose there could be a Republican policy out there that is being as publically and as enthusiastically endorsed by Republicans as much as her GND proposal has been by her fellow Democrats colleagues in Congress but I haven't seen one...at least one that has been as enthusiastically as the GND was when it was first announced as a policy goal.
The Green New Deal on Alexandria Ocasio Cortez's webpage here: https://ocasio-cortez.house.gov/gnd is vague. It's vague enough that the Democrats all probably like it because it doesn't mean they'll have to actually do anything until everybody has forgotten this thing exists. I think AOC is pulling a Trump...trying to appeal to a voter base who are primarily concerned that people just acknowledge that it exists and is being largely caused by humans.
When I read that, I think "AOC acknowledges manmade global warming. AOC has therefore done her research. Whether she'll do anything about it or not is irrelevant. She's shown she has a rational head on her shoulders because she's at least acknowledging that manmade global warming exists"
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Same thing for the promises with the "Medicare for All" that in Bernie's proposal at least...calls for the elimination of private insurance for as many as 180,000,000 Americans most of which are satisfied with their plans. His plan will cut doctor/hospital's reimbursement rates by 40% forcing many doctor's offices and hospitals out of business, flood the system with a massive increase in doctor and hospital visits causing the doctors that are still in business to see far more patients each day than they are capable of seeing, longer and longer wait times for time sensitive care, etc not to mention inevitable ballooning up of costs that seems inevitable in any government run program. The annual cost to taxpayers is estimated to be 3.2 trillion a year yet many somehow many believe that only "those in the top 1% not paying their fair share".
Don't we have a more expensive healthcare system than similarly industrialized nations with government-provided healthcare? I do need to look into that more though.
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The Democratic presidential nominees all vowing that their healthcare plans will give hundreds of thousands if not millions of illegal immigrants government funded healthcare is pretty absurd too. Bernie's stance on allowing convicted felons to vote while still in prison. The sudden calls for the abolition of the centuries old Electoral College, the sudden calls to pack the Supreme Court, pushing a new standard of justice that now assumes you're guilty until proven innocent if the prosecutors can't prove you didn't commit a crime. The idea that faking a hate crime and falsely accusing someone or some group is ok as long as it "starts an important conversation about _______ (racism, misogyny, etc)"
I could go on but it would literally take a full day to list all the progressive policies and ideas being endorsed by the progressive wing of the Democratic party that with all due respect to your earlier point could be considered much more "patently absurd" or the friendlier term I prefer "economically unrealistic".
The thing about illegal immigration is that many of them do pay taxes. Many of them also don't get to use certain services because they are illegals though. From what I understand they can't legally receive social security benefits, for example.
Regarding paying for the healthcare of illegal immigrants...from what I understand it is illegal for public hospitals to turn away patients in emergencies. It might be a lot cheaper to give them free doctor's visits than to wait until they get giant tumors and have to treat the tumors.
I don't see anything inherently bad about removing the Electoral college. I could kind of see both sides. It's disadvantages include people sometimes getting elected despite not receiving the popular vote and every vote not counting. It's advantages include people in New York and California not acting kind of like far away royalty determining the fate of people in the Midwest.
I generally care less about specific laws than about a politician's capacity to think rationally. As far as I can tell, everyone who believes Earth is 10,000 years old cannot think rationally and I don't want them in the government. As far as I can tell everyone who is not pro-choice cannot think rationally and I don't want them in the government. As far as I can tell everyone who doesn't at least seriously consider that humans are causing a noteworthy percentage of global warming is cannot think clearly and I don't want them in the government. If someone thinks homosexuality isn't natural, they're incapable of thinking clearly and I don't want them in the government.
My only other concern is that we don't get dragged into unnecessary wars. All the other stuff, whether we have Bernie Sanders-like healthcare or something else...I figure that's just a mixture of pros and cons I don't have much interest in caring about until after it happens. I figure if people are rational, they'll figure out the appropriate ways of doing things. There's usually only one best route, and the smartest people will find it.
Dan Bongino sums up the difference in how liberals and conservatives see one another perfectly with this statement. The explanation runs from the 6:40 mark to the 12:12 mark of the video and goes into why having an understanding of your political opponents helps in debating the other side leading up to the 2020 presidential election.
In fairness to liberals he makes a clear distinction that there are plenty of exceptions with liberals thinking this way especially high school and more blue collar liberals being more tolerant and understanding of conservatives as opposed to liberals with higher levels of academic education so it's not a blanket repudiation of liberals.
The point he makes is in response to a study that found that the higher the education level a liberal achieves the more socially clueless they are in understanding conservatives, their political opponents.
According to the study, high school educated liberals are 3 times more likely to understand their conservative opponents than liberals with a graduate or doctoral degree. Bongino makes an excellent point on why that is. No such correlation was found when looking at different education levels among conservatives and their understanding of liberals btw.
How about you cite the actual study instead of a YouTube video?
Sure, OP. That's why Trump says things in his 'rallies' like Democrats hate this country; and Democrats want to tear this country apart, etc.
Take the plank out of your own eye.
Point one finger and there are 10 pointing back at you.
I go by actions not words. And I see most of the democrats in favor of opening the borders to the whole world, without a thought or care about the consequences.
So yes, I will say that the open borders democrats hate this country and want to see it fail.
The thing about illegal immigration is that many of them do pay taxes. Many of them also don't get to use certain services because they are illegals though. From what I understand they can't legally receive social security benefits, for example.
Going back to this again...I've seen stuff like this before:
The Social Security system has grown increasingly reliant on this stream of revenue, particularly as aging Baby Boomers start to retire. Stephen Goss, the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, estimates that about 1.8 million immigrants were working with fake or stolen Social Security cards in 2010, and he expects that number to reach 3.4 million by 2040. He calculates that undocumented immigrants paid $13 billion into the retirement trust fund that year, and only got about $1 billion in benefits. “We estimate that earnings by unauthorized immigrants result in a net positive effect on Social Security financial status generally, and that this effect contributed roughly $12 billion to the cash flow of the program for 2010,” Gross concluded in a 2013 review of the impact of undocumented immigrants on Social Security. https://www.theatlantic.com/business...-taxes/499604/
I don't know how true that is...but if it is true, that sounds like a pretty good deal. I kind of like the idea of type of not-quite citizen who pays more into the system than they get out of it, as compensation for coming here illegally. I've been wrong about the effects of immigration before though. I need to look into this in more detail.
Liberals introduce well intended policy only to be terrible administrators
Conservatives are great administrators (Trump excluded) of terrible policies
You make the commentators point perfectly with such arrogant, self righteous certainty that every liberal position you hold is righteous and the gospel truth. No room for any possibility that you might not be 100% right on everything in your world huh?
You're at least mostly correct about the WMDs and GW Bush's and the complete fiasco trainwreck known as the Iraq War. There were plenty of people on both sides of the aisle that fell for it in supporting the Iraq war but yes that was a colossal f up on W's part.
The left deals in rock solid facts and logic on climate change? Really? Many on the left aren't even honest enough to acknowledge that the vast majority of conservatives believe that the climate is warming so there's no reasonable way they can even debate liberals on the subject. The general argument seems to be that because conservatives don't want to see our economy
suffer and energy prices soar through the roof while China, India, and Russia are given a free pass to do whatever the hell they'd like son that we might lower the earth's temperature 2/10s of a degree in 30 years we're "science deniers" and hate women, children, and want to see people die.
Did you ever think that maybe...just maybe we aren't arrogant enough to think humans can control something as huge and incredibly complex as the earth's atmosphere and climate or we just happen to believe as a matter of practical reality that it may be more realistic to prepare for and mitigate the future effects of climate change the best we can without overwhelming and potentially wrecking the economy in the first process of trying to stop inevitable and unstoppable climate change effects that eventually WILL eventually happen no matter how much carbon emissions we eliminate?
The left is always correct on gun control? Says who? Only a complete government confiscation of guns from all registered guns owned by law abiding citizens would put a dent in the number of guns in the hands of citizens but would do nothing about the millions of guns still in the possession of those who don't follow the gun laws anyway and are committed the vast majority of gun murders inthe first place. Small safety measures are one thing but government confiscation of the guns of millions of law abiding citizens isn't going to deter or stop 90% or more of the gun murders commited by the people breaking the gun laws we already have on the books. Saying that liberals are always right on gun control is laughable. Many of the left's positions on gun control are wildly unpopular.
Trickle down economics don't work? Yet another economic theory the left misinterprets (perhaps willingly). The Reagan, Bush, and Trump tax cuts ALL led to higher tax revenue collected by the government compared to just before they were implemented. Arguing that the amount of tax revenue collected WOULD have been higher if the tax cuts weren't implemented is completel hypothetical. The tax revenue either goes up or down and in all cases it went up after the taxes were cut. The fact that people tax revenue went up AND citizens got to keep more of THEIR own money makes it even better. The reverse has also proven to be true when tax hikes were implemented. Total tax revenue collections have historically gone down. Government SPENDING has been THE problem that neither side has had any discipline or political courage to control. Both parties have been miserable failures when it comes to uncontrolled spending.
First of all, I said "Just about everything..." that does NOT mean 100%. "Just about everything" is NOT "everything"! Comprehension much?
There is just so much wrong with this post, I don't know where to start. First, let's start with the bizarre theory that combating climate change would wreck the economy (?!). Eh, no. Not only will it not wreck the economy, things from natural gas to solar to electric cars are the economy of the future (also present). Gas prices will not increase, if anything, it will lower gas prices because the demand will be lowered.
And I like how you went straight to "gun confiscation" as soon as I mentioned gun control. We can have gun control without confiscation.
You can always tell which right-wingers have been reading too much fake news blogs. No, tax revenue DID NOT increase after the Trump tax cut. That is a persistent LIE among the right-wing media. Not only is it a bald face lie, any person with a little common sense would have figured that you can't possibly collect less taxes but somehow end up with more taxes??!! The fact that so many right-wingers actually believe that, just goes to show how delusional they are.
And your argument doesn't address the "trickle" part. "Trickle down" economics is supposed have trickling, right? But there is so little trickling down that it's not really trickle down economics as it is supposed to work.
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